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An infiltration of a German federal security system last year has been traced back to a botched attempt by an unnamed security official to use a Trojan to monitor his daughter's internet usage, Der Spiegel reports.

According to the report, a hacker friend of the young woman found the spyware on her machine before hacking into her father's machine, supposedly as payback for the privacy intrusion.

The girl's friend discovered a cache of security-related emails on the father's machine; according to the report, the policeman had diverted official emails to his private computer. This allowed his daughter's pal to infiltrate a German police system – called PATRAS – used to log the location of suspected criminals through cell phone and car GPS systems.

The intrusion (launched from systems in Russia) was detected, prompting a decision by German police to take systems and servers supporting the PATRAS program offline.

A 23-year-old from North Rhine Westphalia was arrested last summer for hacking into German customs authority computer systems.

The “No Name Crew” hacking group, which is blamed for another hack into the PATRAS system, has uploaded sensitive information from customs investigations. A police spokesman declined to say whether the two cases were linked.

More on the story can be found in the original report by Der Spiegelhere (in German) and local English language reports here. ®